Michael Horowitz's Most Recent Posts

The Chrome Task Manager pinpoints a performance problem.

Adobe's new scheme for self-updating their Flash Player on Windows, fails to notify users of new versions.

The Adobe Shockwave Player was just updated to correct security flaws on Windows and OS X. An Adobe tester page reports the installed version, if any, of the Shockwave Player. This is what Windows users can expect with Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer.

Firefox, that old gray mare, ain't what she used to be.

Even a visit to Yankee Stadium requires a little Defensive Computing.

When a hard drive develops bad sectors, you want to read what you can from it. Many backup programs can't do this. We discuss some that can.

There have been three new releases of Chrome in the last few days. I'm OK with that.

On three Windows machines that I tested, the Chrome browser is stuck at the previous version (17.0.963.56) despite attempts to manually update it to the latest and greatest version (17.0.963.65). This leaves both Chrome and Flash vulnerable. Even a fresh install of Chrome, installed the previous version, not the latest version.

I have been looking for a simple way to see all the devices on a Local Area Network for a long time. Fing, an application for both Android and iOS, seems to be the answer. It's fast, free and extremely useful.

What's a surge protector to do after it can no longer provide surge protection? In a follow-up to a previous blog, APC officially stands behind their documentation that says their NET8 model will not provide unprotected power. Tripp Lite says nothing, leading credence to their own documentation which says that their ISOBAR4ULTRA does provide unprotected power after it fails.

The good news is that the BBC recently warned the British public about the dangers of Man in the Browser attacks, raising awareness of the most insidious danger with online banking. The bad news is their exclusive focus on Windows, the most-attacked operating system. I offer some simple, free suggestions for Windows users, that make online banking more secure.

The legacy approach to email, typified by Microsoft's Outlook program, permanently mated email to one computer. While cleaning up an old Windows XP laptop, so that it could be given away, I ran across a not-so-obvious flaw in this scheme. Removing all traces of email accounts requires lots of registry hacking.

What does a surge protector do after it dies? Sounds like a philosophy question, but it's actually Defensive Computing.

A recent New York Times editorial on online banking suggested that many banks are not up to the task of security. However, the editorial writer mis-understands some of the technology. Some of the defensive steps suggested in the editorial are a sham, while three major dangers were omitted entirely.

The New York Public Library website was found to be hosting malicious software.